


Lily Heterodyne and the Hair No Comb Could Tame

by Geekhyena



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Humor, Kidfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-13
Updated: 2011-05-13
Packaged: 2017-10-19 09:06:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geekhyena/pseuds/Geekhyena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Lil Heterodyne Story, set in the future.  Cuteness ahead!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lily Heterodyne and the Hair No Comb Could Tame

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The Foglios own Girl Genius. I'm just an adoring fan who likes to play in their world.
> 
> Note: Any resemblance to events that may or may not have happened is entirely coincidental. The bouncing cake incident certainly did not happen, and it did not involve buying a new bundt pan, and it most definitely did not occur to someone who is now a very accomplished chef-in-training. (There, now my sister won't kill me)

Lily Heterodyne and the Hair No Comb Could Tame

Lily loves her hair. It’s long and blonde and pretty, just like her mother’s, and it’s exactly the right shade to set off her big brown eyes.

“So do you think the new kid will have the same blonde hair/brown eyes combo Lily has?” Violetta asks, as Agatha shows Lily how tendons work. “Your hair, Gil’s eyes – it’s cute.”

But sometimes, sometimes Lily isn’t very fond of her hair. It’s always getting messy and tangled, and it never ever lies flat.

“We may have to move to the heavy weaponry to get your hair to stay in place,” Agatha comments, holding up a jar labeled “Greased Lightning Extra-Extra-Extra-Hold Hair Gel”. “Hold still, Lilybud.”

Grandma Lilith says she gets it from her mother.

“When she was little,” Lilith says, attempting to put Lily’s hair in a braid in hopes that it might stay in one place for more than a moment. “Brushing Agatha’s hair was a chore and a half. Even olive oil couldn’t get some of the tangles out, and no matter how nice we finally got it, fifteen minutes later it was a mess again. And such a tender scalp! Every morning, it was a war getting her just to sit still.”

Grandpa Klaus says that she gets it from her father.

“When Gil was little….very, very young, in fact… I was still getting things…off the ground, so to speak, and I was attempting to comb his hair. I was not expecting it to get stuck, nor for the comb breaking rather than give up its hold,” he says, as he captures her pawn with his knight, the Tyrant of Europe taking time out of his busy schedule to give his granddaughter lessons in strategy, just as he used to with her father. “You see what I did there? Now, as I was saying…it wasn’t the last time that happened, either. He may have been Von Pinn’s favorite student, but even she was at wit’s end with his hair.”

All Lily knows is that it’s annoying to have to spend an hour each morning fighting against her hair.

Why, that time could be spent sneaking into the laboratories, or begging stories from the Jagergenerals, or even working on a new experiment! Instead she’s stuck sitting on a stool in front of Grandma Lilith, or her mother, or Auntie Zeetha, while they attempt to tame her hair and she tries to read the latest book she’s gotten her hands on.

Ziva has nice hair. It’s only a little messy. Combs don’t get stuck in it, either.

“Madame Lilith, when can Lily come and play?” Ziva asked, bouncing over to where her cousin sat, dragging her stuffed bear behind her, her hat firmly on her head, while Lily and Lilith once more fought the battle to tame Lily’s hair at least somewhat. . Ziva’s hair was, as usual, already plaited into a simple green braid, a process that barely took a minute to accomplish. “My Daddy says if we’re really good, we can watch him and Uncle Dimo do their throwing knife trick! But we’re gonna be laaaate….”

Sometimes Lily wishes she had Ziva’s hair.

“There! This should work! What do you think, Castle?” Lily asked, as she viewed her latest creation.

{It looks intriguing, young mistress. May I inquire as to what exactly it is intended to accomplish? }

“It’s an automatic hair-styling clank, of course!” She said with all the certainty a girl of almost six could muster. “If this can’t fix my hair, nothing can.”

{If you say so, young mistress. Perhaps I should alert the servants, just in case? And perhaps a containment team?}

“Last time was an accident! I wanted the tomatoes to explode, not grow fangs and attack people…”

{Of course.}

Remembering proper lab protocol, just like Mama, Lily made sure she had done everything right before activating her latest clank. Easily breakable stuff out of the way? Check. Goggles on? Check. Heaviest mallet she could lift, in case something went wrong? Check! Just as she hit the on switch, Violetta opened the door.

“Lily! There you are! How did you escape the nursery –again-? And what is that – uh-oh.” The clank dashed over to her on its spindly legs, descending upon her in a frenzy of brushes, combs, and scissors, and just as quickly, exiting out the now open door, leaving behind a slightly bewildered Violetta, who was now sporting a rather chic set of pin curls….in a rather un-chic shade of fluorescent pink.

“Ugh, pink!” Lily said, dragging the mallet behind her as she tried to catch up with her escaped creation. “Sorry Miss Violetta! It was supposed to fix my hair!”

Agatha heard the assorted screams, yelps, and exclamations of shock and delight long before the clank came anywhere near her. Rubbing her very pregnant belly, she looked up from plans for a new lock system on the Dyne and spoke: “Castle, what exactly is going on?”

{A creation of the young mistress’s has escaped, with rather amusing results. No serious harm is occurring; although I do believe Madame Ottilia is rather incensed…I am keeping well aware of the situation. Your intervention is not required at this moment. If the semi-angry mob catches up to the device, however, it may well be.}

“I see.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and wondered what joke Fate had played on her to have Lily break through at age five and a half, right after she and Gil had announced their success at trying for another child. The four months since had been….eventful, to say the least. From the patchwork electricity-spewing cat that had been Lily’s first creation, to the attack tomatoes of – was it really just last week? Agatha and Gil had fully realized just how difficult it could be raising even one Sparky child. Now they were about to bring another into the world – and Mamma Gkika had said that she wasn’t entirely sure Agatha wasn’t carrying multiples….She sighed. “Keep me informed.”

Lily turned the corner, unable to catch up with the angry mob that was chasing her creation, and collided with her father. He scooped her up in his arms, removing the mallet from her hand. Lily looked up at her father, and gasped.

“Um….so it got you too?” She asked. “It was meant to fix my hair, not to run amok!”

Gil sighed, moving his daughter to balance on his hip as he followed the trail of chaos left by the mob. “And why did you do that?”

“Because my hair is tangled and messy and never stays in one place and Auntie Sleipnir once said it’d “take an army to tame that wild mop of mine” and I figured maybe a clank might work? Because properly applied Science solves almost everything?”

“Ah. And accepting that your own hair is perfectly wonderful the way it is never crossed your mind?”

Lily looked away uncomfortably, “Um…..not really?”

He sighed again. “I think after we get this mess sorted, your mother and I will have a bit of a talk with you….just the three of us, okay?”

“Uh-oh…” Lily did not like that tone of voice. She wasn’t in trouble….but ‘a bit of a talk’ meant what every kid dreaded: parental lecturing. And again, so soon after last week’s “no explosives without proper supervision, and no, the Jagers are not proper supervision” lecture. “Sorry?”

He chuckled softly. “I appreciate that, Lilybud, but you’re not getting out of this. Even if it was funny to see the angry mob run past.”

“I was trying to catch up!” She protested, as they finally did encounter the mob. The clank, in one of its few bright moments, had scrambled up a light fixture and was holding on for dear life. Assembled around the clank was a small crowd of angry people, most of them sporting unusual and often incongruous new hairstyles.

Krosp was attempting to climb the wall, his elegant fur now shaped into what could be charitably called a poodle cut…if said poodle had been dipped in glitter and run through a pricker bush backwards. Vanamonde Von Mekkhan looked very embarrassed at the green vertical spikes his hair had been sculpted into, giving the viewer the impression that the man had a small lawn growing out of his head. Several Jagers were growling angrily, their hats barely covering the tonsorial atrocities perpetuated upon them by the clank. One of them bore a white powdered court dandy style that had gone out of style several centuries ago, another, braided pigtails, and still another, a Mohawk.

But by far the worst atrocity was worn by Ottilia, who currently sported a sky-high beehive. Lily almost laughed at the odd sight, but then thought better of it. The Muse of Protection had a definite temper, and even though she would never hurt any of her charges, Lily being one of them, Lily knew that an angry lecture was definitely on the books for later. Wonderful.

As the terrified clank clung to the swaying chandelier, inches away from Krosp’s claws, Lily began to fear her creation was seconds away from being shredded, but then the angry mob stopped its yelling as Agatha entered the room, holding a small steam pistol. “I’ll handle this,” she said firmly. “I’m sure the effects are temporary, aren’t they?” She looked at Lily.

“I….I think so,” Lily hedged.

“There you go, then. A simple clank gone awry. Surely you can’t fault her for a little experiment run amok? She isn’t even six, after all.” The crowd grudgingly murmured its assent. “Good,” she continued in the same calm, rational tone. “I will discuss this with my daughter on my own.” There was a bit of a silence, then the crowd dispersed, the various members heading off to resume their duties, or, in Krosp’s case, huddle in the corner, washing himself vigorously while muttering invectives under his breath.

Firing one single shot at the stem of the chandelier, Agatha sent it crashing to the ground. “I never liked that thing anyway. Too many skulls.” She calmly strode over and picked up the clank, holding it delicately as she examined it. “Interesting design… Come on, dearests. We’ll discuss this in my office.”

They followed her back to one of Agatha’s many workrooms, and she shut the door behind them, leaning against it. She looked at Gil and burst out laughing. “Oh, Gil….” She said, gasping. “You look…like….like a dandelion….in full seed! Like your father…crossed with a dandelion. Oh, I have to….” She fumbled in the desk and pulled out a small camera, activating it before Gil could snatch it from her hand.

“You are not taking a picture of me like this.”

“Oh yes I am!” She retorted, doing just that, despite Gil’s glare. “So this is what I’ll have to look forward to in thirty years or so.” She laughed, setting the camera down on the desktop. “Now what exactly is the meaning of all this?”

“I wanted to fix my hair!” Lily exclaimed. “It’s tangly and messy and ugh. I wanted it to be nice and neat, like Ziva’s. But then Miss Violetta opened the door right when I turned it on, and it kinda got loose, and then…” She looked sheepishly at her parents, then up at her father, trying to stifle a giggle and failing. “Sorry, Daddy. I made sure the dyes I gave it were temp’ry ones…”

“Thank heavens for small mercies,” Gil muttered.

“Lily,” Agatha said, taking her daughter in her arms and hugging her tightly. “Your hair is lovely. Yes, it is sometimes hard to manage. I used to go through the same thing, as did your father. I imagine that when this child is born, we’ll go through the same thing with him or her. But unruly as it is, it is a part of you, and I wouldn’t want to change that for the world. Everyone has things about themselves they may not always like, but we learn to love those things. I used to hate having to wear glasses. They were always getting in the way, but over time, I got used to them, and now I love them. You say you want Ziva’s hair, but did you know that she can’t do anything with hers either? Your auntie is always telling me that if she tries to do anything with it besides a braid or ponytail, it slips right out, no matter how many hairpins she uses. Ziva’s hair is entirely too slippery, you see. So she hardly has it perfect.” Her voice took on a tender tone. “Besides, you, my sweet Sparky Lilybud, are lovely just the way you are. Understood?”

Lily shrugged. “…’kay.”

Agatha supposed that was the best she was going to get for now, and left it at that. Lecturing could come later. Right now, her daughter needed reassurance. Gil came over, and they hugged Lily between the two of them. Agatha’s belly chose that moment to give a strong lurch, kicking hard, and Agatha laughed. “See? Even your sibling-to-be agrees.”

“I guess…” Lily got an idea, and her face brightened. “So you might be having twins? I heard Mamma Gkika wasn’t sure…” Agatha nodded, and Lily continued. “So if there is, does that mean one’s the control and one’s the experimental one?” Agatha and Gil shared a look between them. On one hand, Lily’s attention was now distracted. On the other hand, she was distracted.

“When Father hears of this he is going to laugh and laugh and laugh….” Gil muttered. “Lily, you can’t use relatives as test subjects. We went over this after the time with Freya and the angel food cake, remember?

“I thought the lesson from that was ‘cake isn’t supposed to bounce’.”

“That, too.”

“It’s not like she actually ate it….Auntie Sleipnir stopped me in time. And they fixed all the damage…eventually.”

Agatha sighed. “The point is, no, we will not be experimenting on any family members.”

“That’s what Jagers are for,” Gil added, dodging his wife’s elbow. “Now what are we going to do with this clank?”

Agatha grinned. “That, I already have an idea about. I know just the place for it. Now how about we go and do something, just the three of us? One of the Devil Dogs needs its joints retuned, and a special someone is just small enough to crawl inside…”

Lily grinned. “Awesome!”

A week or so later, in a salon in Paris known for its exclusive and high-style fashion, a woman in a fetching ensemble of skulls and fur opened the rather large box that had been deposited upon the doorstep that morning. “What on earth?!?” She read the note attached and grinned, showing off very sharp teeth. “Well, we were thinking about expanding our services….”


End file.
